Nowhere is that more true than in a newsroom, where we thrive on, well, news. And news, quintessentially, is change.

Something happens that changes the status quo. We go out and figure it out and we make a story about it.

In a way, this is one of the best parts of working in a newsroom. No two days are ever really the same, because the stories every day are different from the stories on any other day.

Each day is defined by that day’s events, and our collective task is to somehow make sense of it all in stories, photos and graphics. We distill the day down to a package of stories, pictures and maps, organize it as best we can, edit it, and make a newspaper. Hopefully, we’re done by deadline. (Usually we are.)

It’s certainly not an average workplace. Here, in fact, every day begins with a degree of uncertainty. We plan ahead, of course, and there are plenty of stories we work on for several days, weeks even, before they appear in the paper. So it’s not as though we’re starting from scratch each morning.

Breaking news, however, is always the wild card. It doesn’t happen conveniently between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., and most reporters therefore don’t really keep regular hours and aren’t found all the time hunched over their desks, banging on keyboards. (Those are the editors.)

Reporters go where the news is, and they go there when the news happens. Sometimes that means they’re writing when everyone else is eating dinner.

Even on less exciting beats – and I’d argue that no beat is really dull – reporters find their schedules in flux as they arrange interviews based on the availability of their sources, go to meetings in the evening, chase leads, or more frequently and far less dramatically, wait for people to call them back.

Then there’s the actual writing of the story. We take pride in reporting fairly and objectively, but that doesn’t mean we have to be boring. Most writers enjoy crafty writing, the clever lead (first paragraph) of a story or the inclusion of interesting details.

Sure, there are certain types of stories that we come back to time and again – meeting or event announcements, crime stories, weather stories, etc. – and there’s practically a template that can be dropped onto those stories to get them into the paper or onto the Web quickly.

But at it’s best, journalism is about the unexpected. It could be a surprising comment from an unusual source in an otherwise traditional story, an unanticipated development in a story we’ve been following or something completely out of the box, as they say.

Those are usually the best, probably because there is no way to really plan for them. They tend to energize the whole room and bring out everyone’s best – the organization as a team rising to meet a challenge.

I could write a whole column on the type of people who relish such an environment, and one of these days, I probably will.

Most people, when they say, “change is good,” say it with at least a little irony or sarcasm.

Here in the newsroom, however, we embrace change. It’s our daily bread.

And in the spirit of that, I’ll close this week with a solicitation to you, Dear Reader: If you could change one thing about this newspaper, what would it be?